Dear Editor,
Election Day is a few weeks away. Some of us already know how we will vote. Others are still deciding.
However it goes, some of us will be unhappy with the result. Disagreement is part of a free country. The problem is that disagreement has been treated as enmity. Someone who votes differently is not your enemy. They do not share your beliefs. If we all believed the same things, we would be a dull country.
What worries me is the casual way socialism and communism are talked about, as if they were slogans rather than systems with a record. My parents emmigrated from a country that sold socialism as the answer. Fifty years later, that country had abandoned it for democracy, because it produced more poverty, not less, and the wealth did not go to the poor. It went to a different set of elites.
“This time will be different” is always the promise, and always the same script. Once the money at the top is gone, the next tier is the almost-wealthy, then the middle class. Ten or 20 years on, you are another poor, corrupt country.
Capitalism is not perfect, but it lets people move up. Many of us came to Westchester from places that had become dangerous, crowded, or run down. Order is part of why this town works. Bringing the politics of the place you left will not improve Somers. It will give you a reason to move again.
Do the research, not the version a favorite actor, podcaster or news outlet is selling, and not the habit you inherited from your parents. Look at how socialist and communist governments have actually turned out. Vote for a future in which someone poor today still has a real chance to be secure tomorrow.
-Gigi Sobi, Somers
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here